ESRC'12 - Joan's ride to chinon

Author

File Description

CarolKarine

Posted on 08/08/12 @ 10:07 PM (updated 09/12/12)

File Details

Version:

The Conquerors

Style:

Fixed Force

Joan's Ride to Chinon

A light rain falls on the ground, wind rustles the grass and leaves of the trees. It is spring, a moment of rebirth and growth, a new life for a land stained with blood. The pale green of the newly-grown saplings and shafts of light that pierce the young leaves overhead give testimony to the grown, but the scars in the earth where battles have raged, where fires have swept away tracts of forest, where the animals no longer sound, show the damage that has been wrought in the months before winter. It was as if a past life was being wiped over, and would soon be invisible Ã¯Â¿Â½ and eventually healed. A truamatizing moment in a child's memory healed with naught but a hug and kiss. But the land had been torn for very nearly a century by a war that had left the woods empty, and the people of France broken. Three generations of peasants had passed since the beginning of the war, and very few knew the cause was none more politics. To them a king had died and new king should be crowned. It was simple, there were rules in place for this, Salic law was certain in it's reckoning.

But the British came. They came, and they conquered. But the french people resisted, they fought. However, it was as if building a sandcastle before an oncoming tide. No preperation is enough to stop such an undeniable force, and for 91 years, they fought, slowly losing a war that would leave them exaughsted as a people and a land. Only divine intervention could possible save these people, which, in fact, it did.

This scenario is based on the original Joan of Arc campaign. It is remastered with new map design, while leaving much of the old layout and even dialogue. As this was often the first scenario played after finishing the William Wallace campaign, I found that this inspired nostalgia in my friends and I while playtesting. However, I tried to add more to the story to give the feel of a war-torn France, and to add more gameplay to avoid it being a cakewalk.

Please note that this is not a departure from map layout or essential gameplay, it is intended to be a rather complete reconstruction of the original, while adding to it. It is NOT a complete redo with a more historically accurate map and gameplay.

Natasha Warnes performed the music you hear during the course of this scenario.

I'm not sure why, but about 10 seconds after starting, the game ends (with my defeat), regardless of which outpost I choose. I'll try it on another computer, but you might want to check that and make sure it's not a bug.

dikaios

Posted on 08/09/12 @ 06:39 PM

I would agree with Sarn! Maybe the game has some bugs, so if it is possible can you check your scenario for any possible problems?
I appreciate it very much!

HockeySam18StaffOfficial Reviewer

Posted on 08/09/12 @ 08:46 PM

CarolKarine-
I just opened the scenario with campaign manager and found the source of the bug. Your trigger that fires when Joan is killed to activate the loss trigger, its condition is destroy object, which should be set to Joan, but no object is selected, causing the trigger to fire immediately and activate the loss trigger. When I set the object to Joan, the scenario was able to play through as normal per your intention.

Very good design, but a couple suggestions:
-When the Brits blow up that bridge, you might want to remove all of the palisades. Otherwise, the player is forced later to unload Joan and company on the walkable water created by the removal of bridge middles, which is unrealistic.

-At the Burgundian base, when the player is presented with two paths (sneak through or smash the base), choosing one path should deactivate the triggers for the other. I smashed the base and then explored around to then hear Bertrand's message about avoiding patrols in the base.

-Make the detection area bigger for Bertrand's and DeMetz's change of ownership to yellow and the message about finding troops and a ram. I ended up triggering that message after already finding the troops and the ram, which was awkward.

Once you update this, I will revise/remove my comment so as not to send an inaccurate message to downloaders. You can also expect a review from me (and a pretty high score)! People, once the author has updated, DOWNLOAD THIS. It is an excellent scenario and, as the author said, very nostalgia-inducing!

Sam

CarolKarineFile Author

Posted on 08/10/12 @ 08:43 AM

Thank you Sarn! I will get on those - and I thought I fixed the bug you talked about.

The file is updated with the changes sarn suggested. however, I cannot get my screenie to show.

EDIT: I thought hokeysam's post was by sarn. whoops. but I did fix those bugs!

[Edited on 08/12/12 @ 10:22 AM]

i_like_h3ll

Posted on 08/11/12 @ 01:34 PM

The map design is very good and the game is funny. sei italiana?

Den cekke

Posted on 08/13/12 @ 03:34 AM

I'm stuck at the English/French battle. The english army doesn't move away. One time I almost killed them all but then the cavalier killed a hero and I still lost. In the original scenario the british move away after winning the battle so I think they should do that here too.

CarolKarineFile Author

Posted on 08/13/12 @ 08:28 PM

the idea was to treat your units you recieve in the base as expendable in order to distract the british. they will leave after you pass a certain point on the other side, meaning you can fight and MAYBE win - I seriously doubt it - or run past. I've never actually won a battle, and that's on purpose.

SoverignSythius

Posted on 08/16/12 @ 01:06 PM

Not to sound mean or anything, but I think the scout at the french fort is missing a line where he reports he saw a Burgundian nest to the north. Nice fix to the path though. :) Beginning cut-scene is funny.

CarolKarineFile Author

Posted on 08/16/12 @ 01:09 PM

No, it's there. You just didn't trigger it. You have to head a little bit down that path in order to hear it.

CarolKarineFile Author

Posted on 08/20/12 @ 05:03 PM

I should remind you that this scenario was meant to be extremely close to the ES scenario. You know how 343industries recently released Halo Anniversary, and all it was was a graphical update? that's the idea I was going for. Maybe I should increase the difficulty, however.

but when it comes down to it, the events of the scenario are in no way supposed to be drastically changed. The Castle is there to fill up map space, as it was in the original. As it is historically inaccurate for Joan to run off to crush that castle (the first thing she does is go to Orleans after talking to the dauphin) and before she simply has no access to the necessary men, it is unreasonable to expect her to do as such.

Remember what this scenario was designed for - to be a graphically updated ES scenario, as what they are infamous for was their terrible map design. That was the goal here, in essence. I will go back and update difficulty tonight, and re-upload, but do not expect any drastic changes.

Please re-review with the guidelines in mind, found here: http://aok.heavengames.com/guidelines/review-guidelines

Please look back at your "Playability" and "Balance" sections. Please keep in mind the different skill levels of different players, and the fact that My goal was not to ruin the nostalgic scenario by making it nintendo hard. On that note, look at creativity again, as you seemed to miss the point completely that I was not trying to re-make the map, rather I wanted to update it.

I will fix the difficulty levels. however, I believe that you have missed the point of this file completely in the other two categories.